Toast @ Theatre Royal
It’s the committed cast who really sell this show.
A revival of Richard Bean’s Toast at the Theatre Royal is – and I mean this as a compliment – far better than it sounds.
Set entirely in the drab break room of a Hull bread factory, the play follows seven men working the Sunday night shift. The first act really is just that: we watch the men amble in and out of the room, trying to eke out their smoke break for a few minutes longer, unwrapping their sandwiches, moaning about the boss – and it’s utterly, strangely compelling.
Like a yeasty loaf, the tension rises in Act Two when the oven jams shut and the workers are forced to climb inside it and clear the blockage. This action all takes place offstage, and Bean’s technique is to leave us watching just one actor in the break room, while muffled shouts from the wings hint at what might be happening on the factory floor. This is remarkably effective, forging a connection between us and the actor whose face we watch, waiting for clues.
In this respect, special notice must be given to Matthew Kelly, playing the elderly Nellie. Standing out amongst a stellar cast (Simon Greenall is hilarious), you can’t take your eyes off him. His face, crumpled under his baker’s hat, conveys the exhaustion of 60 years in the job; it’s testament to him that single words, grunted out, tell us so much. One extended sequence involves him sat alone on stage, silently eating a slice of cheese, and it’s an absolute highlight of the play. When Kelly comes out smiling for the curtain call, it’s hard to believe we’re looking at the same person.
That weariness in Kelly’s face is at the heart of Bean’s play. The factory employees work an 80-hour week, knowing that they could lose their jobs the moment the oven cools down. The play nods towards a political angle with its union rep and management disputes, but the real focus here is on the way that these men band together and build their own community through their workplace, however tough it is there. When the factory is in crisis, the employees come together and support each other, and that sense of unlikely family is precisely what Toast celebrates.
Alongside the hardship, though, the play really is very funny. Two hours spent in a dull factory room might not be anyone’s idea of a good night out, especially after your own day at work, but the cast are worth spending time with. Both slapstick and the men’s dirty jokes about the ‘lass’ at home keeps the play entertaining throughout some of the more contrived sections early on, but it’s the committed cast who really sell this show.
Toast is on at Norwich Theatre Royal until Sunday 5 March.
